I’ve been thinking about putting this book together for several years. During two de cades of writing about nursing, I’ve read many inspirational books, articles, and essays that offer up the literary equivalent of comfort food for RNs. The authors invariably mean to be helpful to the nursing profession by lifting the spirits of its practitioners at a time when so many are feeling tired, stressed out, dispirited, or unappreciated. The problem is, in this heavily sentimental genre, the real- world context of long hours, increased patient loads, and chronic understaffi ng quickly fades into the background. In the foreground we see traditional images of nurses as people (generally women).
